Every year, we debate candidates for word of the year and choose a winner that is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of that particular year and to have lasting potential as a word of cultural significance. 2020 is the year of the presidential election — not only in the United States but also in Taiwan, where I am from. Kraken spiked in lookups again in mid-November, when lawyer Sidney Powell said she would “release the Kraken,” which in this case meant to present evidence that votes for President Donald Trump had been deleted. He used it again during the 2016 Democratic National Convention, saying, of then-candidate Donald Trump: He is trying to tell us he cares about the middle class. #yearinsearch Among those lost in a year of many painful losses were two individuals whose life’s work persisted long after they’d earned a restful retirement. Antebellum comes from Latin ante bellum, meaning “before the war.” We define the English word in a two-part definition: the word can mean simply “existing before a war,” but it is especially used to specifically mean “existing before the American Civil War.” The enslavement of Black Americans that so painfully characterizes the antebellum period was centered in both instances of the word’s increase in lookups: the movie imagines the horrors of antebellum slavery imposed on modern Black Americans; the musical group’s name change means that its name no longer evokes a time when Black Americans were slaves. We define the word as “presenting no symptoms of disease.” It was formed in the middle of the 19th century to contrast with symptomatic, a word that predates it by more than a century. Based upon a statistical analysis of words that are looked up in extremely high numbers in our online dictionary while also showing a significant year-over-year increase in traffic, Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2020 is pandemic. Though not a new word, coronavirus rocketed from obscurity to ubiquity in a span of a few weeks. Learn more, Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. The US is one of the least free “free” nations. The black mamba in particular is very fast, and very deadly. In 2020, it became increasingly necessary to specify “in-person” voting, learning, worship and so on. In 2020 the stakes will only get higher. When all was said and done in 2020, the word irregardless had earned a spot in the Words of the Year pantheon—mostly just by having the temerity to be a word. The word was largely ignored as the year began, but that changed on January 20th, with the announcement of the first U.S. case of COVID-19. Delivered to your inbox! Are you feeling the need for a change, or wanting to improve on something in 2021? Mamba refers to “any of several chiefly arboreal venomous green or black elapid snakes (genus Dendroaspis) of sub-Saharan Africa,” and comes from the Zulu word imamba. Mamba spiked in lookups on the day of Bryant’s tragic death, with users looking up the word 42,750% more than is typical; the next day that number had increased to 66,366%. Debbie Harris’ word for 2020 was Jump, while Elisabeth McKnight says that “A word of the year sets to your goals and direction in the new year. 2020 is the start of a new decade, so there’s bound to be changes with that alone, including how we will be saying the year for the next decade. But a revisit of what we learned in 2019, from the very good to the shockingly bad, and how that knowledge will (or won’t) affect the way we live, work, shop, travel, vote, etc. On July 23rd, Seattle’s brand-new National Hockey League franchise chose “Kraken” as its team name, hurling the word kraken into top lookup territory. So is the time for dictionaries, the self-appointed gatekeepers of language, to make their annual picks of the most popular words that became part of our lexicon. Looking back isn’t our style. The only word with even the slightest degree of optimism came from Merriam-Webster, which chose they for its emerging use as a gender-neutral pronoun and its influence in evolving the English language. "Social distancing" was one of dozens of terms highlighted by researchers in Oxford Languages' 2020 Word of the Year campaign. Your word will serve as a reminder of God’s truth in your life and inspire you to live your faith each and every day. Schadenfreude belongs to a class of German borrowings that highlight that language’s penchant for referring to complex ideas in a single, though lengthy, compound word. From Hey Dude to Hey Sexy, we millennials have learned much cool dope words which we follow in our daily life and have also changed the way we speak with the way our elders do. Questions of the soul will be front and center as we witness incredible feats of the human spirit with multiple space missions and Olympic contests. The first jump in lookups came in June, when an award-winning musical trio announced a name change: “Lady Antebellum” would now officially be called “Lady A.” The second increase came with the September release of a movie that uses the word as its title. Kids have been using this slang term for years, but 2020 is the first time it’s been recognized as an actual word. The Oxford Languages 2020 Word of the Year campaign looks a little different to previous years. In 2018, the Word of the Year was "toxic," and in 2019, it was "climate emergency." The word was key in the many conversations about how to address police violence, as activists called for the defunding of police forces, and others tried to understand what that in practicality would mean. The results of both elections will impact my rights, freedom and future. 2020 is going to be a display of the power grassroots movements can have. “Black Mamba,” he was called—a nickname the player had chosen for himself more than a decade before. Here’s hoping 2020 unveils the digital fabric that cloaks us. A coronavirus is an RNA virus that was given its name in 1968 by a group of research virologists who noticed that, under a microscope, the virus resembled a solar corona visible during an eclipse (corona is the Latin word for “crown”). Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free! But this word is perhaps also popular among wordies because of its specific and slightly malicious meaning: “enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others.” It had a spike in lookups in March when news of the collegiate admissions scandal broke, but the biggest single spike this year took place on October 2nd, when it was announced that President Trump had contracted the novel coronavirus. That phrase has gone on to enjoy a life of its own, with “Release the Kraken” being attached to memes as occasions warrant. In a world experienced through screens, scripted narratives and avatars, authenticity feels unattainable. 24 teams are invited: [Show] Both SARS and MERS are examples of coronaviruses. The Oxford Word of the Year is a word or expression that has attracted a great deal of interest over the last 12 months. It’s easy and free to post your thinking on any topic. Overall, defund was looked up 6,059% more in 2020 than in 2019. Anyone you ask is ready for a fresh start, not to erase the crucial learnings of 2019, but to better prepare themselves for what’s to come in 2020. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. The year 2020 gave rise to so many new words – and called so many old ones back into service – that the editors at Oxford Languages couldn’t pick just one word of the year (WOTY). You were in or out; hot or cold; red or blue; them or us. The word saw significant increases in lookups in both instances, averaging 2,205% higher than last year. How pandemic defined 2020. When faced with the challenge of selecting a word to reflect this tumultuous year, Oxford Languages couldn't pick just one. But do we really need the dictionaries to tell us what our words of the year are? The name stands for “coronavirus disease 2019,” and was added to our dictionary in a special release of new words in March, giving COVID-19 the distinction of being the fastest term to go from coinage to inclusion in a Merriam-Webster dictionary—the process took only 34 days. There’s been a lot of interesting language around the soul of a city or a nation needing to be reclaimed, or saved from itself. It resembles an Irish last name (sometimes spelled Mullarkey), but could also have come from Irish slang or even a similar-sounding Greek word. Microsoft Word Free Download for Windows 7/10/8 (x32/x64/x86) is really a text editor.Which will be able to help you make a fresh file document.Provide you access to additional documents in the same format, edit, and then make corrections. As writers sought to eulogize first Representative John Lewis in July, and then Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September, they called upon the word icon to do so. Ding, ding, ding: Merriam-Webster on Monday announced “pandemic” as its 2020 word of the year. Quarantine was looked up 1,856% more frequently in 2020 than in 2019. This year has been a year where I experienced feelings and events on both ends of the political, professional, personal and emotional spectrum. There was very little middle ground. The largest spike in lookups came on March 19th; overall, coronavirus was looked up a staggering 162,551% more this year than in 2019. The violence and crises of the 2000’s brought about a heightened awareness of Safety: what it means, why we need it, and what we will do to secure it. In this year when the public’s mind has so often been focused on COVID-19, the word asymptomatic is a reminder of one of the coronavirus’ most challenging characteristics—that people who are without symptoms can be contagious. For 2020, it's all about Covid-19. Because there is such a lack of it and we need it more than ever. In fact, this entry’s audio pronunciation is one of the most clicked-on in our online dictionary. The Domain Driven Design’s Missing Pattern. An example of this use came in the form of a headline from USA Today: President Donald Trump's coronavirus infection draws international sympathy and a degree of schadenfreude. (Wrong or not, Ms. Curtis, we still love you.) Following the announcement of President Trump’s loss to Joe Biden, the word again returned to a high spot in our list. Leave a Reply Cancel reply. If 2019’s winners are any indicator, we’re not jazzed about 2020. What choices will we make in the coming year, knowing what we know now? Nothing is set in stone.Uncertainty reigns.But everything is up for grabs.Hold tight. Forming up the second are words that characterize the lived experience of 2020. The word asymptomatic was looked up 1,688% more this year than it typically is. Ms. Curtis was wrong: we first entered irregardless in one of our dictionaries in 1934, and an entry for it has been at Merriam-Webster.com since the dawn of that website. Not just a play on words! Awards season is here. So in terms of usage of words and slangs, here are 2021 popular 24 slang words every millennial should use to put a desired impression about your vocab: Source: Everything will start with “twenty twenty ___.” But I think there will be so much buzz about potential change in the White House, climate change, and even further change in the MeToo movement. Coronavirus dominated our lives this year, and Google data shows how it … ThoughtMatter is a creative branding, design and strategy studio in New York City’s Flatiron District. One thing is certain: malarkey was used first in the U.S., not Ireland. Our team of expert lexicographers continually monitor and analyse language developments, and it quickly became apparent that 2020 is not a year that could neatly be accommodated in one single “word of the year”. The word antebellum was looked up in significantly higher numbers for two distinct reasons in 2020. This word has been on the scene for a while, but seems to have stood the test of time. We’re going to stop questioning the status quo and start establishing what’s next. 'All Intensive Purposes' or 'All Intents and Purposes'? In a year that left us speechless, 2020 has been filled with new words unlike any other”... so it's unprecedented that for the first time, the Oxford English Dictionary did NOT name a word of the year. Use of “Black Lives Matter” and “BLM” also surged, as did the term “QAnon”, up by 5,716% on last year. It has been an exhaustive year on all fronts. Required fields are marked * Comment. Overview [] Format []. With entire societal constructs being challenged, governments being toppled, democracy fraying at the edges and human survival hanging in the balance, 2019 didn’t exactly spark joy. 'Pandemic,' plus 'malarkey,' 'kraken,' 'antebellum,' and 8 more of our top lookups of 2020, Photo: Steve Petteway, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States / United States House of Representatives | Public Domain, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic. Your email address will not be published. 2020 will see society organize into two camps — those who stay woke and those wary of wokeness. The leading pandemic words may look familiar to you: Covid-19, social distancing, isolation, doomscrolling, corona, mask, Zoom, canceled, and their related forms and variants. Dictionary.com chose existential to describe the threat we face as society and a species. I know what you’re all thinking, this one is practically ancient. Quarantine is also used as a verb in English, a use that dates back to the early 19th century. mirai = future. Cancel culture is cancelled. It’s clear that this word is a favorite of Biden’s. The 2020 Season World Championship (Worlds 2020) is the conclusion of the 2020 League of Legends esports season. 2020 is the start of a new decade, so there’s bound to be changes with that alone, including how we will be saying the year for the next decade. The social, cultural, environmental imperative to change the direction of the world. Schadenfreude is a word-lover’s word, one that pops up in spelling bees and vocabulary tests all the time. And we need more of it in order to face what’s coming in 2020. Pixar is releasing a new animated feature entitled Soul in 2020. Even More Coronavirus Words. The word seems to resonate with Biden’s public image: folksy, a bit old-fashioned, and Irish-American. These two events made for a year-over-year increase in lookups of 885%. Both words can be traced back to Greek sympiptein, meaning “to happen.” The prefix a- means “not; without.”. This political season should be focused on in-person, constructive engagements rather than viral and impulsive newsfeeds. Everything will … This is partly because it’s hard to spell, and partly because it’s fun to say out loud, although its pronunciation isn’t necessarily easy to discern for an English speaker. According to Dictionary.com, the acronym stands for … As most of us now know painfully well, a pandemic is defined as “a disease prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world.” Oxford went with climate emergency as the “defining issue of our time.” Collins saw a hundred-fold uptick in the use climate strike, due in no small part to the hundreds of environmental protests around the world inspired by a single Swedish schoolgirl just over a year ago. As news coverage continued, alarm among the public was rising. 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